


Scared Straight

by Falke



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Halloween, Minor Original Character(s), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: City fox Nick Wilde has never really experienced the harvest season, and Judy Hopps hasn't made time for a proper celebration in years.Time for a vacation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (This takes place after [The Measure of Trust,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908136/chapters/18066316) and there will be some callbacks, but it shouldn't be required reading.)
> 
> Enjoy!

"Apple cider."

"Nope."

He could sense Judy frowning next to him, in the passenger's seat.

"Ghost stories?"

Nick had to think back. "Does the one about how old man Felters died alone and it was three days before anyone found him count?"

"No," Judy said. Her muzzle twisted. "That's just morbid."

The radio crackled. Nick reached over to turn it down a bit, even though it was as quiet as their low conversation. None of the noise would make it out of the cruiser, but sitting here in the dark had him feeling careful.

"Oh, of course." Judy turned to him. "Jack-o'-Lanterns."

"Sorry."

_"Seriously?"_

Nick scratched his cheek. "I kicked an old rotting one once, on a dare."

"But you've never carved one." Judy looked so disappointed.

"I haven't."

"Well then this trip back just got that much more important."

"This is a farmer thing, isn't it?" Nick asked. "I mean, there were Harvest parties at school, and you could sort of tell when it was getting to be that time of year."

"Harvest is the biggest thing all year out in farm country," Judy said. "You live it, for a good two months. There are get-togethers and potlucks and everyone's working really hard."

Nick was not-so-secretly enjoying this conversation, because the more Judy talked about her experiences as a child on the farm, the more Nick was looking forward to returning with her to celebrate. He'd never experienced the holiday like this.

His old neighborhood had always been quiet on the nights before and after Harvest, now that he thought about it. More police presence, maybe. Nick had never put thought into what that meant, not until now when he and Judy were the police presence.

Zootopia had its share of pranksters. Most of the Harvest mischief was harmless enough - toilet paperings or overzealous residents taking the scaring a little too far. Most of it happened the night of, according to Judy, and a lot of ZPD's cops walked that beat on foot, just to keep an eye on things.

Some of it was worse, though. Some used the excuse of the time of year for more dangerous things, that put others - or themselves - in a bad place. That was why he and Judy were out here tonight.

She stood on the edge of her seat to look out the side window. "You see anything?"

"Not yet." He checked his own mirrors and debated rolling down the windows. It was warm in here. "We don't even know if she'll be through."

"Do you think she knows better than to risk it? She won't be happy to see us again."

"No," Nick agreed. But this was for Jamie's own good. And they'd tried things the nice way once.

Jamie Clementine, the file read, the one he and Judy had put together almost from scratch when they'd drawn this civic case. Female lynx, seventeen, all on her own in a really big city. No lifeline, no resources, no friends - and almost no caution for it.

Two different stints in juvie - one of them thanks to Nick and Judy - hadn't slowed her down. Nick had known a couple reckless mammals like that, and none of them had ever found a stable footing. They'd built a picture of her life in miniature they could pass off to one of the department social workers, whenever one came free, but until then they were both going to push at it. Judy wanted to help, not least because she wanted to help everyone. Nick wanted to help because Jamie reminded him just a bit too much of what he might have become himself.

Motion caught his night vision, just a moment before Judy murmured the alert. A block distant, near the entrance to an alley behind the rowhomes. Someone a little shorter than him was approaching in the single bare streetlight.

"Is that her?" Judy asked.

It was hard to tell from here. Whoever it was didn't spend too long in the glow of the light before they disappeared down the service street.

"Let's go check it out," Nick said. "On foot. I don't want anyone to feel cornered here." He checked for his taser, just out of habit. There was always the chance it wasn't Jamie.

The night air was blessedly cool and carried woodsmoke on the breeze. Nick's nostrils flared. That was the surest sign yet the season was turning, even more than the leaves starting to collect in the gutters, or the front steps done up with fake cobwebs.

Judy locked the car behind them and followed alongside, eyes wide in the dark.

"Got your cuffs?" he asked.

"If you think we'll need them."

"I'm going to try to talk her out of here first. If she bolts, just let her go for now."

"Right."

They paused at the mouth of the alley. Nick could see their target about halfway down, standing in the middle of the damp road, reaching up to poke at a window set in the back of one of the houses. It would be tricky, sneaking up on another predator, but he was good at it and Judy had picked up a lot of technique from spending so much time with him. He started down, trusting her to watch his back. He wanted to get close enough before their mark could do something she'd really regret. As it was, she'd already slid the window open and had poked her head through the gap.

"Jamie."

The figure whirled as Judy clicked her light on. Tufted ears, fluffy cheeks, sharp eyes squinting against the glare - it was her, all right, and she recognized Nick, too. She took a step away from the window.

"What do you want?"

"To talk," Nick said. He stopped where he was, against one side of the alley. He kept his paws at his sides, where she would be able to see them. "Can you put the stick down?"

It was a length of pipe, actually, but Nick wasn't going to make the distinction right now, not while her eyes were flicking around like she was looking for an escape route. He waited and watched while she let it clank against the brickwork.

"It's been a couple of weeks since I saw you last," Nick said. "What are you doing down here?"

Her face hardened. "Getting by."

"I don't think whoever lives here would see it that way," Nick said. "You know what might have happened if they had to call us down here for a home invasion."

"There's nobody in there." Jamie waved a paw at the window. "I'm not stupid."

"It's more than that, Jamie." Judy was even less threatening than Nick - anti-threatening, really - but she was being firm. She stepped up next to him, careful not to make it look like she was blocking off the alley and trapping Jamie in here. "They have a right to privacy, too."

"You were breaking and entering." Nick tapped the camera clipped to the front of his uniform. "You're going to have to come with us."

"Not again." Her ears flattened at that. "What _good_ will that do? You know you can't keep me there."

"We can if we have to, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that," Nick said. "We just have something to show you." He took a step closer. "Are you carrying anything dangerous, Jamie? Any weapons or needles?"

Her jaw worked. "No."

"Put your paws on the wall for me, please."

Judy covered him while he stepped close and frisked her. Her t-shirt and shorts were thin for the season, even for a pred who got thick fur when the weather turned. There was a cheap prepaid phone in her pocket, and a few dollars. No ID. She didn't say anything as Nick cuffed her paws behind her back and steered her toward the alley mouth. Judy read her her rights - and skipped the line about minors and parents. Nick kept his eyes front. This was rough on everyone here.

They got Jamie secured in the back and drove for headquarters. Judy had started their paperwork already, Nick noticed. Their charge's record was a long list of minor offenses.

\---

But instead of to booking, they took her left at the metal detectors in the precinct sublevel, and started buzzing through a row of heavy metal doors. The duty officers at each station had a knowing look.

This had been Bogo's idea, actually, though he left the case-by-case discretion up to his officers. For minors who needed a little bit of an extra push, or something potentially stronger than the usual juvenile detention routine, this was an option.

Jamie was starting to realize something was up, too. The nerves showed up as twitches in the tufts of her ears.

"Where are you taking me?"

Nick held his tongue. This would be most effective if it was a complete surprise.

A left, and a right, and a fight of stairs and the last door opened to a walkway that looked out on a cavernous two-level room. Railings ran around the balconies below them, and metal staircases down to the floor divided either side. The walls were lined with occupied cells. Jamie stiffened.

General population was in quiet hours right now, and it was indeed quiet enough to hear the fluorescent lamps overhead. Jamie's cuffs clinked as she drew her arms closer.

"You can't just put me in here."

"Not yet." Judy pointed her straight ahead, further down the observation hall. "But some of the inmates here aren't that much older than you."

"I didn't kill anyone," the lynx persisted. Her voice tightened. "I didn't steal a car, or go after someone with a bat."

"Not everyone here did, either," Judy said. "But it takes less than you'd think to wind up in prison."

"Minor vandalism, petty theft, probably not. But breaking and entering-" Nick scratched the back of his neck and shrugged at her. "If a homeowner felt threatened enough, or if you got in a fight, even a small one, even if you felt like you were defending yourself - a judge is going to have to weigh all of those things. They'll be looking at your record."

Jamie stared as they walked, down at a badger who was sitting on her bunk, apparently bored out of her skull, and at a spindly elk who tossed and turned in the next cell over. They were about the only ones moving down there right now.

"What did they do?"

"We can't discuss specific cases," Judy said. "But you can read the court rulings if you want. We keep them all on the public file upstairs."

She fell silent and just watched. Nick and Judy paced her, to the other end of the hallway and back again when she realized they were the ones waiting for her to have seen enough. She didn't look up once during their trip back through the detectors and gates to the processing lobby upstairs. The digital clock on the wall read 10:24.

"You're not under arrest for what happened tonight," Nick said. He reached over to unlock Jamie's cuffs. "But you should think about what happened. If we have to come find you again, we will have to keep you here."

Jamie kept her eyes down.

"The counselor wants to talk with you before you go," Judy said. She pointed to the nearby interview room. "Through there."

She looked ready to protest again, just for a moment, but instead of speaking she moved off to comply. The door snapped shut behind her. Judy blew a sigh.

Nick eyed her wilted ears as they detoured toward the offices. "You did good work, Officer Carrots."

"I don't like it," Judy admitted. "Any more than she does. Did you see her face going through observation?"

"Hard not to," Nick said. He put a paw on her shoulder when that seemed to do the opposite of help. "We got to her before there was a break-in call. That's got to be enough, for tonight."

"I know."

The offices were mostly deserted this time of night. Wolfovitz was tapping away at some late-breaking drug report in the corner. They left him alone and went to the social affairs side of the room, where some of the staff kept care packages for down-on-their-luck mammals who came through.

Judy left off checking the scale tags on the stack of packages and watched him rub at the fur on his forearms. "Would you ever tell her you were nearly in her place?"

Nick couldn't help but think about it. It made this part of the job all that more important for him. That he was tangling with Jamie and kids like her meant they weren't getting by as easily as he did as a teenager alone on these streets. Jamie was done with school and if she kept this up she wouldn't have any shot at trade school or community college, much less any of the universities. And there were plenty more out there who kept their ears down, just like he had, who probably wouldn't approach police even if they needed the help.

So Nick settled for helping the ones he could. The ones he had to.

"If there has to be a next time, I think I might."

Judy put her paw on his arm this time. They waited back out in the hallway, a respectful distance from the interview door - and not for long.

Jamie didn't look to have experienced much of a catharsis. If anything, she was more sullen and restless than she'd been in the back of the cruiser. She folded her arms and stared up at them.

Judy shifted the bag from paw to paw. "Do you have someplace to go tonight, Jamie? We can give you a ride if you need one."

Her ears wavered.

"You don't have to tell us where," Nick said. "We just want to know you have a roof over your head. It's getting cold out there."

Jamie eventually nodded. "It's close," she managed, still unwilling to meet their eyes for long. "I'll walk."

"Here." Judy held out the bag as they started for the doors. "The shirt's your size." It was very basic, but the long sleeves would help. There was food and water in there, too, in case she needed it. Jamie hefted the bag, visibly taken aback.

"If you need to get in touch with a counselor, or a shelter, or if you just need someone to talk to, come find Clawhauser," Judy said. "He can even put you in touch with us, if you want a familiar face or two."

The night breeze was refreshing again. Nick stayed with Judy at the top step, just outside the doors, and let Jamie get some distance. She kept her eyes down and kept that bag close, and didn't look back as long as they watched.

"Do you think she's getting it?" Judy asked.

"We can hope." Nick looked down at her. "And if she's not- well, we'll hear about that, too."

They walked, too. Their duty was discharged for the night - not perfectly, but more cleanly than it might have gone, if they'd found Jamie just a little later. Nick sensed Judy was thankful for that.

Now, they had time - time to put down the stresses and preoccupations of their work and make memories for themselves. That was important, Nick had found. They did their jobs, to the best of their ability - beyond, in Judy's case - and knowing when to step back from that for a time helped both of them. They didn't often get the chance to take in the city without having to worry about being police at the same time.

So instead of jumping on the next train for home, they wandered Sahara Square for a while. It was late. They shared the sidewalks with the leaves blowing in the night wind, and in this part of town there was a veritable glow of festive orange pumpkins and candles on most of the stoops. The open-burning ones were technically illegal, but residents of the city had been doing this every Harvest that Nick could ever remember. They were off the clock and nobody was in immediate danger from them, so they let them be and Nick enjoyed the scent.

"That one's nice." Judy took his paw and pointed to one that depicted a deer doing a decent snarl. Across the way was one with a weirdly perfect canine skull shaved into the pumpkin's skin so the light within glowed through.

"Will you help me carve a bunny when we go back?" he asked, and scratched at his shoulder.

"Of course," Judy said. She looked up at him. "You okay?"

"Itchy. It's getting cold."

"Winter coat?"

"Winter coat."

Judy looked sympathetic. "You'll probably like that, actually. Bedrooms underground are getting chilly this time of year."

"It's annoying for a while," Nick said. "I get hot flashes."

She huffed a quiet laugh and moved a bit closer.

"If you're going to kick off the covers, you have to at least keep me warm," she said. "Deal?"

Their first real vacation in a long time coming up at her childhood home, learning new traditions and trying new things with her, and now a new excuse to keep her close in the dark? Nick couldn't _wait_. He put his paw on Judy's shoulder and drew her a bit nearer against the night wind.

"Deal."


	2. Chapter 2

Judy started awake as the brakes engaged. She blinked up at Nick beside her, where he was looking out the window at the dusky train station.

"We're here?"

"We're here." He nudged her. "And it looks like you have a welcoming party this time."

She climbed up onto the chair to look out the window, gritting her teeth at legs that protested for being still so long. There was a little huddle of rabbits at one end of the platform, standing close against the night breeze. She recognized the family ears, and Chris and Samantha at least. Had they all walked out here?

Nick was wrangling their bags. He seated his backpack and took a deep breath.

"You're not worried, are you?" she asked as she jumped down to help.

"No. You and I got over that last time." His smile hid the understatement of the century, but his ears hadn't come all the way back up yet. "This one is supposed to be completely stress-free."

Judy held her fox there in the accessway, just long enough to pull him down for a fast kiss. "Relax, Nick. They're going to be happy to see you, too."

The chill air took her by surprise. They'd dressed for it, but the country was already a bit deeper into the cool season than Zootopia. Judy took a deep breath herself. It smelled of woodsmoke and fallen leaves, and the multitude of ripening crops that stretched both ways to the horizon. It smelled like home.

The Bunnyburrow train station was decked out for Harvest - hay piled in the corners, and artful tangles of real pumpkins and squash rambling out onto the cobbles. Her family was the only group out here for the late train, just as she and Nick were the only passengers debarking here. They smiled and waved as she left Nick behind in her haste to greet them.

"Sam! Chris! And Wes and Kayla - oh, it's so good to see all of you."

"Welcome home, Judy."

"And you, too, Nick!"

Judy watched him smile. Her family wasn't quite ready to swamp him with the flurry of hugs the way they had her, but they were genuinely happy to see him - Kayla and her boyfriend Wes, especially. He pumped Nick's paw.

"How's the leg?" Nick asked.

Wes grinned and rapped his foot on the pavement. "Good as new. We've been better about keeping an ear on the weather since then, too."

"I'll bet."

They trooped through the carrot arches and onto the path toward home. Samantha took her suitcase, and Chris launched straight into the abbreviated State of Harvest. She saw Nick looking on, amused at her siblings' enthusiasm for something he still didn't know much about.

"We're at about the halfway point right now; Dad's got everyone clearing corn and the root crops by about three fields a day."

"You fixed up silo five, then."

"Just last week."

"There's corn left, though, right?"

"Wouldn't be Harvest without it," Chris said. "There's a couple still up, plus the special case. I helped pattern the maze a couple days ago."

"Oh, I knew there was something I forgot." She turned to Nick. "Corn mazes?"

He got a slow smile. "Sorry."

"You city fox."

"Oh, no." Kayla laughed at her expression. "Your boyfriend has some catching up to do."

They never would have heard talk like that the last time they were back. Judy watched the surprise transition to utter warmth on Nick's face, and felt a sensation that had nothing to do with the wind skate down her ears. Yes, he did have some catching up to do - but this time, they had time for it.

"We'll fix that."

\---

Judy's family home ran on a sense of collective purpose all year, but the mad press of a burrow full of rabbits always felt even more focused and energetic during Harvest time. She kept finding herself smiling.

There were plenty of new faces here, too, plenty of extended family and siblings who hadn't seen Nick the first time he'd come through. Judy saw friends of the family, too - badgers and hamsters and a couple of voles. Nick was still the biggest predator around. But Harvest seemed to soften everyone's edges a bit. If he was here, the burrow seemed to be thinking, there was a reason for it.

In the kitchen, her mother was laughing her way through some joke with aunts and uncles. Attention turned as they entered, and here too the mood was one of warm welcome.

"Judy." Bonnie crossed the room for a hug. "Welcome home, sweetheart. And you, too, Nicholas." She hugged him, too, like he was one of her own kits.

The family made room for the new arrivals down on the end of the long table nearest the hearth and plied them with heaping bowls of the family's staple stew, and fresh bread. It didn't matter that it was nearly 10 at night; Judy was hungry and happy to get a warm meal after a day of travel. Nick had three bowls, because her siblings knew his appetite was often more than the rabbit-scale dishware could sate. She could see him trying to be discreet about licking his chops.

"You two are just in time," Bonnie said. "We're roasting up all of the vegetables for tomorrow's dinner first thing in the morning."

The stovetops and ovens would be running full time to make enough for everyone. Judy even saw a stack of cast iron pots in the corner by the storeroom. They'd probably be using the long firepit on the patio, then, too.

"Can we help?" Nick asked. He scratched his neck fur.

"I don't have dibs," Bonnie said.

"Yeah," came another familiar voice from behind them. "The field teams get you first."

Judy sank back against the paws on her shoulders. "Dad."

"Hi, Jude. No, no, don't get up," Stu said as Nick made to slide his feet out from under the table. He went to put an arm around Nick's shoulders and shook his paw. "I'm joining you anyway. Welcome back, Nick. How was your trip?"

"Good," they chorused. Nick smiled across the table at her.

"The train was busy until the boundary waters," Judy said. "We spent an hour standing in lines this morning. Everyone's fleeing the city."

"Craziest travel days of the year," her mother said.

Stu nodded. "You're actually some of the last ones in."

"Sharon here yet?"

"Tomorrow sometime, she said last. Work was keeping her and Grant late."

They ate and laughed and the warm greetings from family and friends just kept coming. Someone cleared away the bowls to replace them with coffee and little plates of hot blueberry pastry with a crumbly crust. Nick's tail was wagging. Her parents looked sympathetic when Judy explained to them he'd never experienced a corn maze, much less carved a Jack-o'-lantern.

"You picked the right Harvest gathering," Stu said. "You'll get the whole package out here. Have you seen the maze yet, Jude?"

"It was already dark when we got in."

"Hey, Joe!"

Her geek brother looked up from partway down the table, his mouth half-full of cobbler. "Oh, hi, Nick. Jude."

"Show them the maze this year." Stu was excited.

Joe passed over a tablet with a complex rendered pattern that he'd apparently been showing around. "The best part is it's still a workable crop," he mumbled around dessert. "We got pictures of it with the drones, and the CAD gave us something more complex than last year that still keeps margins under five percent."

"Drones, huh?" Nick was grinning at the intricate grids and spirals. He scratched his muzzle.

"I let Joe take the lead," Stu said. "They cleared all the paths and patterns a few days ago. I haven't even been inside yet."

"I'll bet the kits love this," Nick said.

"Like nothing else. Winter wanted to stay up to see you tonight, you know." Bonnie put a paw on Nick's elbow. "She looked about ready to risk the ghosts."

Judy laughed at his reaction and pointed deeper into the burrow. "The only way to keep them all from climbing the walls this time of year is to tell them the ghosts will get them if they leave their beds after lights-out. It's in good fun, mostly."

"We should join them sooner than later," her mother said. "Busy day tomorrow."

"We'll put you to work on the north fields," Stu said. "Lots of corn left to go."

"Oh." Judy dug in her pocket for the little sealed sandwich bag. "Mom, this is for whatever you think it will go best in." She passed over the ginger root. "From our garden."

Her parents looked so proud. You could take the rabbit hundreds of miles from the farm and put her in the concrete jungle, but you couldn't take the farmer out of the rabbit. Her mother was holding it with the reverence she reserved for the drawings and paintings Judy and her siblings had always presented her with.

"In the cider, I think," she said. "It'll be ready for tomorrow night."

\---

Nick knew his way around well. He left her to sort their bags after Judy got pulled away to say hello to yet more family, but he was waiting for her in her room. For once, now, there wasn't a crowd of spectators lurking around the other side of the door. Judy latched it shut and was almost immediately wrapped in the arms of her fox.

"I love you," he murmured.

"Mm." She wriggled around.

"And I love your family."

"It's only been a few months since you were here last."

"Already way better than last time."

She had to let him go long enough to unpack suitcases and backpacks. Judy watched Nick pull off his shirt and contort around to scratch at his back.

"What's the deal with the ghosts?" he asked, his voice going quieter as he turned in place.

"It's an old family legend, I guess," Judy said. "It goes that every harvest season, some rabbits who have passed on come back to keep an ear on things. If the little ones are making mischief, they can get a visit from a specter in the middle of the night."

"Really?"

"I know there's no such thing. It's to help keep them a little quieter while everyone's busy with the crops. You grow out of it eventually."

He watched her in the mirror by the room's little washbasin, amused. "Are we talking a bunny in a white bedsheet here, or what?"

"It used to be," Judy said around her toothbrush. "Now it's more fun. You know the huge run-down barn out at the edge of the property? We keep it just barely repaired enough so it doesn't collapse, and the wind makes it rattle and moan. Add some lights and a fog machine, and a couple of volunteer puppetmasters, and it's a perfect set piece. You'll see it tomorrow."

They traded so he could brush his own teeth, and Judy debated her sleepwear. Yes, it was chilly, just as she'd expected. But she didn't know if she'd need warm pajamas. Nick's fur was mussed every which way, and did indeed look bushier and thicker now that she was paying close attention. She reached into her back, past the big linen sleep shirt.

She managed to keep it hidden until Nick had returned to the tiny bed and stretched out as best he could. She climbed up beside him, and then onto his chest.

"What?"

She had a paw on his collarbone, pushing him down. "Look what I brought."

Nick's eyes dilated. _"Carrots-"_

"Yeah." She stopped the rest of his words with a quick swipe of the little pawbrush against his throat and down his front. He immediately twisted to give her better access as she started running the soft bristles through his fur with firm strokes.

He was so warm already. This was Judy's first season really experiencing the way his fur got out-of-control fluffy. They'd known each other for a long time now, but last autumn they still hadn't made it quite this close.

Now, his claws dug at her hips and he shivered and huffed in pleasure as she brushed everywhere she could reach - his neck, and shoulders, and chest and arms, and even over his head, where he flicked his ears against her paws. His tail was whipping around behind her so hard she could feel it shifting them both left and right.

"How's that?"

Nick gave her a helpless wriggle. "Every time I start to worry maybe there's no way I could possibly love you more, you go and prove me wrong."

She paused long enough to lean close for a kiss - and decided to stay there when she felt the warmth rolling off of him. The fur in the crook of his neck was like a cloud. He rotated them so she was on her back, and wrapped himself around her.

"You smell like flowers," she murmured against his throat. "Like violets."

"Mhm." Nick drew the blankets and quilt over them both, completing their little nest for the night, and reached up to click the light off.

And it wasn't until the darkness pressed around them that it sank in. They were home now, to celebrate a season the way she hadn't had time to for two years, and this time their visit wasn't marred with the stress of an unfamiliar fox. Most everyone knew who Nick was, accepted that he was in here with her right now.

And this time, their work hadn't followed them back. They'd done their jobs, as best they could, and left them there for the long weekend, the way they were supposed to for once. Judy was so proud of him for that, for working through an encounter the day before that was tough on both of them and finding a way to give someone the support they needed.

The last time she'd seen Jamie, she'd been padding away into the darkened plaza outside of precinct headquarters, holding a bag of food and clothing close with some quiet urgency that made Judy's heart hurt. She still didn't know if they'd gotten through to her with their little tactics, or with their help. But she wanted to hope.

And Nick - so attuned to her - tapped his nose against her ear. "What is it?"

"Just wondering where Jamie is," she said. "It's cold outside. I hope she has somewhere to stay out of it tonight."

Nick tilted his head so she'd be able to see him out of the corner of her eye. He wouldn't reassure her. They'd both been at this too long to know there was no such thing as a certainty. Sometimes that hope was all they could do.

"You're so _good_ ," he said instead, and somehow pulled her closer, to give her the support he knew he _could_. "And I'm so lucky for that. We all are."

"You sound like a greeting card."

"You accepted that risk when you reduced me to a puddle a minute ago." Nick pushed his cheek across her forehead and between her ears again. "And I'm serious. Jamie couldn't ask for a better person to worry about her. I like to think she knows what that means."

Judy made an effort, for his sake and for hers, to drop it for the night. Nick was right. And he kept running his muzzle over her, to get her to respond, to anchor her here in the bed with him and not off pondering things they couldn't always control.

So she did. She snuggled down deeper against him to savor the giddy warmth in her stomach, and let him repay her attentions.


	3. Chapter 3

It even felt like Harvest, as soon as she woke up. The nights were cold, and the morning's work started almost in the middle of them. Judy rolled out of bed - and squeaked as the chilly air rushed around her. Nick, at least, was happy to wrap her back up again, and pepper her sensitive ears with hot kisses until they really did have to get dressed.

The morning kitchen was chaotic, even by Hopps standards. Judy stood in line at the ranks of toasters, dodging kits sprinting around at waist height, and sipped at the hot mug of spiced cider someone had pressed into her paws. It was traditional, and delicious - but she was going to want some coffee to wake up, too.

At the door, Stu had a clipboard in each paw, one of which he pointed at them. "B-2 all right with you?"

It was up near the lake. Judy looked up at Nick. "Sounds good."

"Your aunt Sherrie's already getting that field started. Find her and she'll get you something to do."

They trotted out into the predawn twilight, along with the wave of siblings moving to their assigned spots. Judy's breath was misting. She shivered and drew her jacket tighter.

Nick tilted his head at the phenomenon, even as his own breath curled around his muzzle like smoke. "You going to be all right?"

"I don't get fur as thick as yours. You brought the coffee, right?"

He waggled a little thermos.

They passed a riot of orange in the open fields to their right. Judy pointed out the pumpkins.

"As soon as we're done today, you have to pick one of those out." She craned for a better look. "I wish we could have come back sooner. All the good ones are going to be gone by now."

"There are hundreds of pumpkins out there, Carrots."

Yes, but Judy wanted him to have a _good_ one. She could remember the fierce competition she and her siblings waged not all that long ago, to find the most perfect example of a pumpkin for carving - not too heavy, not too thick, not lumpy or misshapen. She and Nick would make do with whatever they found, of course, but it was important that he enjoy the process as much as she always had. She was going to see to that.

Aunt Sherrie was an energetic rabbit taking time off from being an architect to pitch in with the harvest. She gave Judy a strong hug, and Nick a firm pawshake and a warm smile.

"So you're the one Judy suckered in to coming back here."

"I wouldn't miss it," Nick said.

"Couple of cops like you are as big and strong as any farmers. You can run hoppers from the thresher to staging for the trailers." She pointed them down the row of corn, standing tall for now in the morning fog.

The Hopps farm, being a rabbit-run operation, didn't have much use for traditional combine harvesters. There were more than enough paws around to reap and bundle the corn, and the thresher was a custom affair that ran perpendicular to the crop line. Stalks of corn went in one end, the machine ejected a fan of chaff out the back, and swappable hoppers filled with kernels at the other end. Work went swiftly, once they got the hang of moving the hoppers around in the dirt.

It was, as most things on the farm were, good hard work - simple, but gratifying in a way that case paperwork and patrols weren't. Judy caught up with family, and traded jokes, and sang songs, and took little coffee breaks with Nick. The day warmed as the sun rose, and she found she could shed her extra layers. By ten in the morning there was a sizable stack of hoppers rolled together off to one side; by noon they were out of empties. Someone got on the radio to summon the trucks.

"It gets loaded into the silos for drying," she explained as they made their way back to the house. "And some of it from the personal field stays on the ear, for us."

"You make it sound easy," Nick said. He tilted his head back in a futile effort to get any more drops of coffee out of the thermos.

"I'm sure they'd love the help, if you're not sore enough already."

"I'll pass for now." He held the door for her - and then she laughed at him as he followed his nose inside.

\---

They couldn't eat any of the tantalizing dinner yet, of course. It was for the evening, after everyone had finished their work and had time to relax. But they did help cook all of it: Cider, and candied apples, and the family's classic recipe for roasted pumpkin, squash and carrots. They even dried out the pumpkin seeds in the rare moments the ovens were idle, for something to snack on while they waited. Nick decided they weren't for him.

And when the last of the dinner batch was baking, Judy finally had time to sit Nick down at a cleared spot on the table, where she'd spread out newspapers as a work mat. Her fears had been largely unfounded - they'd found a nearly perfect specimen, right near the center of the patch, and lugged it back to the kitchen together. Now she hefted it onto the table and gave Nick the little serrated carving tool.

"Open it up."

"Like, lengthwise?"

She rolled her eyes and pointed further down the table, where a couple of her siblings were doing the same thing. "Like that. Cut a lid in it, so you can hollow it out. make sure you bevel it, too, so it won't fall all the way in."

It was fun watching his face contort, when she took his paw and guided it into the open top. Pumpkin innards were cold and slimy.

"This is gross."

"This is a rite of passage," she corrected him, and held his wiggling fingers in place. "You have to clean out at least some of it yourself. Do you know what you want to carve?"

Nick inspected a pawful of the goop and wrinkled his muzzle. "A bunny, remember?"

"That's right."

They scraped the pumpkin hollow together, and washed their paws, and she hunted down a marker. He took it from her and spent a long moment watching her face.

"What?"

"Temper your expectations," Nick said, and tilted his head a little closer, holding the felt pen up like a measuring stick. "I'm not going to do you justice at all."

Judy felt her ears heat up.

"Jude!"

She turned to see her sister Sharon in the doorway, along with a familiar set of tiny grey ears that blurred by her and under the table. Nick's own ears perked up and he smiled down at the kit who had commandeered leg.

"Hi, Winter."

"Nick!"

Sharon came over to give Judy a hug. "It's good to see both of you."

"When did you get in?" Judy asked. "I didn't think Winter was with you."

"A few hours ago, and she wasn't. Dad put us both to work helping with the hay for tonight. We just finished. Have you seen the maze yet?"

"Only from the air." Judy indicated Nick's progress. "Want to help us carve a pumpkin? This is Nick's first ever Jack-o'-Lantern."

Sharon sat next to them with a mug of cider, and little Winter clambered up to stand on the bench seat next to Nick and watch his outlining on the pumpkin.

"Is it a ghost?" she asked.

"A rabbit," Nick said.

"Ghost rabbit."

"How was your trip?" Sharon asked.

"Pure anarchy, right up until we started hitting green line stops." Judy shook her head. "You're lucky you come from the other direction. Is Grant with you?"

"He'll be here tomorrow," Sharon said. "We wanted to leave together, but his team's last proposal ran a bit late."

"As long as he's here for some of it," Judy said. "His family's smaller, right?"

"Right, and they don't have a farm to fit a maze onto every year."

Winter was pointing to her ears, trying to get Nick to make the ones on the rabbit he'd drawn bigger.

It was, sure enough, a very shaky representation of a rabbit. "That's good," Judy lied.

"It's harder than it looks," Nick said. He put the cap back on the marker and turned to Winter. "Okay. What do you think? Is it ready?"

She considered, and nodded vigorously. Judy held the hollowed pumpkin steady, and Nick started to cut out the shapes.

\---

They found a spot for it outside, on the south side of the maze a little distance away from the dozens of others - and those were just the ones they could see from here. They came in all shapes and sizes. Plenty showed rabbits. Others showed approximations of ghosts and, in a few cases, clear predators, with pointed ears and sharp claws or teeth.

Those didn't seem to bother Nick. He held the little tea light steady at the bottom of the hollow pumpkin while Judy lit it.

"There's so many. What do you do with all of these after the holiday?"

"They're great fertilizer." She helped him place it on the bale of hay at the edge of the stack. "See? It looks good."

"Yeah, if you stand far back enough and squint," Nick said. But he was smiling.

"It'll be even better when it gets properly dark." Judy let him pull her close and breathed in, trying to capture everything about right _then_. "We'll come back."

When they trekked along the perimeter of the maze, back toward the start, the rumble and chatter of conversation grew. They had visitors again, from the neighboring farms who hadn't cut their own mazes this year. A bunch of rabbits were trying to corral a crowd of kits, rabbit and deer and capybara and badger alike, who were positively vibrating in anticipation.

_We can't start yet, we have to wait for the sun to go down._

_Does the sunset count? When it touches the trees?_

_Look! I can see the first turn!_

"You want to get in line?" Nick asked her.

"We should eat first." She pointed to the lights spilling out of the kitchen, and the smaller cluster of rabbits around the long firepit and braziers set out to keep the chill off the porch. "And change. It's going to get worse when the sun goes down."

So they returned to her room to layer up, and took bowls of piping hot roast pumpkin and carrot stew out onto the porch to watch the first batch of kits speed off into the maze.

"They can't all go through there at once," Nick said. "You'd lose a bunch of them."

"It's not a total free-for-all," Judy said. "The edges of the maze are marked, and there are plenty of chaperones in there to make sure nobody gets hurt." She pointed her fork at the pair of quadrotor drones whirring their way around above the field, like oversize dragonflies with night running lights. "Those are new, too."

They let the crowd of anxious kits taper before they went over themselves. One of Judy's older uncles held out a pair of thick cards - and pulled Judy's back out of reach.

"Remember, Judith, no running in the maze."

She rolled her eyes. "Im 26 years old, Uncle Gerry."

"So?" He grinned and waggled the form. "The rules are the rules. No running. And if you or Nick get lost, go to one of the corners with a green flag on it and someone will be along to check on you." He finally gave it over. "The more punches you get from each checkpoint, the more prizes you get at the end."

The looming walls of cornstalks cut out most of the direct light right away. It got quiet and close, save for the whisper of the wind that made it through the stalks, and the muffled shrieks of laughter and excitement from the kits further ahead. They came to the first t-junction.

"Left or right?" she asked.

Nick was right next to her, maybe feeling the effects of the close quarters himself. "Left."

The first checkpoint was easy - just a few twists and turns into the maze. Judy held their cards and Nick punched them with the little tool.

The second and the third were harder. In ten minutes, they came upon as many dead-ends, and a fair few familiar sets of kits, who seemed to be moving in groups themselves, covering the same ground more than once. The little clearings, lit with bunches of thick candles, where the older rabbits kept an eye on things, were starting to look familiar. The natural light fell and the air cooled. Nick seemed to be following his nose.

"Does that really work?"

"No." He paused in a tiny open space and took her paw to pull them down a new path. "Just by accident."

Another junction.

"Left, or right?" she asked again.

A fluffy tail curled its way around her ankles. "Depends. Which way will have fewer chaperones?"

Judy flushed. "Oh, no you don't."

"Oh, yes I do." He bundled her left and then immediately right, into a dead-end nook off the main path, in close enough to the cornstalks that the leaves tickled her ears.

Her token propriety melted against his insistent nose, because ever since they'd entered the maze she'd secretly hoped it would come to this, too. Public affection was still enough to weird her family out, but that was part of the allure right now - a whole bunch of them could pass by not two feet away and they wouldn't know Nick was hoisting her up with his paws under her rump, so he could get his muzzle against her throat.

"If we keep this up they're going to send out search parties," she murmured. "The sun's gone down."

"I thought that was part of the fun," Nick said. But he relented, set her down, and checked that the coast was clear before they stepped back into the maze proper. "I can see in the dark, you know. Nothing to worry about."

They trial-and-errored their way to a fourth checkpoint. The fifth was even harder - they wound up working with a gaggle of kits who were having the same trouble. Judy would hold up a flashlight for them and Nick would crouch at the intersections, drawing patterns in the dirt with a stick based on their input, so the group could figure out where they'd been and where they still needed to go.

To find the last one in the center they were left alone again, as their helpers got a renewed enthusiasm and rushed back into the dark twists of the maze. They stuck close - because he could see better than she could in the gloom, and because it was cold.

And because she wouldn't mind a chance to repay the favor. She was digging her fingers against the knit of his sweater, hard enough that he'd be able to feel it.

He was wrapping his tail around her, too, now that no one else would be able to see it clearly. "Not scared of the dark, are you?"

"I used to be." Judy said. "I had to run the maze with my Aunt Carla, because they said the ghosts came through here, too." She took them left - away from the indistinct voices and flashes of candlelight through the corn, for once - and backed him up against the stalks.

Nick crouched so he would be on her level and kissed her full-on. She could feel the rumble in his throat vibrating her own chest.

"No ghosts here." He slipped a paw under her puffy vest and flannel. The cold night wind prickled her stomach fur, but it didn't matter, because his claws were prickling her chest at the same time. "And any that do show up will have to come through me."

"Ghosts are non-corporeal, Slick. Going through things is kind of their thing."

"Yeah, well."

They were really getting into it. This little corner of the maze was private enough and, yes, she could very much feel the effect she was having on him now that she was letting her paws do some targeted wandering - but there were a lot of rabbits out here. She pulled her muzzle away.

"Someone's going to trip over us. Some kit." _Some ghost._

"What, we can't scare them?" But Nick looked guilty. "You never cared about what they thought."

"We really shouldn't." Judy kissed him one last time. "Not so permanently, anyway." She would have to make it up to him, she thought as she stood up in his arms, letting him brace her away from the cold for just a little longer. Tonight, sometime, when they were back in the room and less likely to be interrupted. She could break out the brush again.

Now, they did follow the sights and sounds. The central clearing was the largest, but it had only one entrance and one exit that led out of the maze.

And when they finally did find their way in, something seemed off. There were a lot of chaperones around - at the entrance, and up the little observation platform at the middle, peering out over the tops of the corn. None of the kits seemed to notice, but then the adults were being careful about it. Judy's brother Chris was here, twiddling one of the farm's radios in his paws.

Judy pulled Nick off to the side so they could huddle. "What is it?"

"We lost one," Chris said. His ears drooped. "Hayley Weston, from the other side of town. She was with the first bunch of kits we let into the maze, but that was almost an hour ago now. She hasn't popped up since."

"Was she with anyone?" Judy asked.

"Her group says she pushed ahead alone. They hightailed it out, themselves - said they saw a ghost in one of the dead ends while they were looking for her. Dad's setting up a search. Quietly."

Oh, those poor kits. "We'll join," Judy said, at Nick's affirming nod. "Tell him we're coming back to the house."

"Right."

He would put everything else on pause, just as she had. There was a whisper of sadness there, too, as they turned toward the paths again, that something so grim had intruded on the whole clan's enjoyment of the evening - on what they'd started to sneak in the hedges, on what she'd started to feel again after years of growing out of ghost stories - but Judy pushed down on it. They could come back, and they would.

First, though, there was someone who needed help.


	4. Chapter 4

They were good at hurrying without looking like it. There was more maze on the way out, if they'd had time to slow down and enjoy it, but the route to the exit was clearly marked.

Things looked mostly normal out here. The maze still drew a big crowd - they weren't going to shut it all down, not yet - but Stu was off to one side with a collection of serious mammals.

"Dad."

"The cutting team is going to sweep the maze itself, since they know it best," her father said, as the little ring opened up to include them. "Joe is pulling out another drone, too."

Judy stood with Nick and fought the impulse to jump into the lead. Yes, she was a cop, with a fair bit of experience now. But the rest of the family was career farmers, for the most part, who had done this sort of thing many times already. They were good at search and rescue.

"Nick and I will go wherever you need us," she said. "Does her family know?"

"Yes," one of the rabbits said, and only now realized there were non-Hoppses in the group. He was looking at Nick, and some of the unease in his ears was not just for a missing child, but for the possibility that the first eyes that child might see out there in the dark might be those of a predator. Judy didn't like that quiet awareness at all - but she couldn't hold it against anyone right now. Someone was wandering around lost.

"Take the north edge of the maze," her father told her. "Along the outside. Do you have a radio?"

"I'll go find Joe."

Nick started past them as the group broke up. Stu reached out and caught his elbow as he went by.

"Nick-"

"Yeah," he said. "I won't approach her. But I can see better than almost anyone here."

"I know." He squeezed his arm. "Thank you."

Judy held Nick's eyes, glimmering in the light of the pumpkins and braziers, and headed for Joe's little command center.

He and his team were working complicated masses of joysticks, staring at the feeds from their quadrotors. He even had an earpiece on, so he could talk and listen to the chatter without having to hit any more buttons. "Two channels up from the default," he called as she passed, angling for where their radios sat in ranks of charging cradles.

"Got any spare lights?"

"In the locker on the left."

Judy pocketed an extra.

"Did you ever write the search procedure down?" she asked. "We're too used to this."

"Someday. Tonight's a good excuse to." Joe looked up at her. "Good luck. Ping me if you need me."

\---

Nick was tucking a first aid kit into his backpack. Judy gave him a pawset.

"You don't even need a light, do you?"

"Not really." His grin showed teeth as he checked the radio's channel. "How old is Hayley?"

"Three, maybe four."

"Poor kid."

"We'll find her," Judy said. "Sorry about the looks, sweetheart."

"Not important right now." He had his paws on her shoulders. "I'm going to stay to your right, okay? Out in the field a little bit."

They swept all the way down the edge of the maze, to where it dead-ended in thick scrub and the rise of the ridge above the crops, then moved north in a straight line and went back the other way. Judy was right along the tape that marked the maze boundaries. A little rabbit could have gone right underneath it without noticing, she saw. Quarters were cramped, and in the dark, all these cornstalks looked the same. It would be easy to get turned around.

Reports trickled in from those sweeping the maze, and from Joe's coordinators. Nothing so far. Judy occasionally stopped to listen hard, but all she ever picked up was the sound of Nick's passage to her right, and the more distant noises of mammals in the maze.

She needed to think like a little one. It had been a long time since she was that age, but she could still remember her father's advice - _if you get turned around, go straight, until you find a clearing, and another one, and another one. The fields are big, but they don't last forever._ It was common farmer knowledge, but how much of that would a kit be retaining, the night everyone had been hyping up ghosts and specters? Everyone knew they would go right through anything between you and them. That's why you had to stay with your buddy during harvest time. That's why you had to stay in bed those nights. No matter how fast or how far you ran out here, they would always catch up.

Judy jumped at the motion in her peripheral vision.

"Sorry!" It was one of the Westons, where her part of the pattern overlapped with Judy's. She held up her paws in the beam of Judy's light. "We think the maze is clear."

"Right." Judy toggled her radio. "That's two passes, Nick. anything?"

"Not yet. No movement out here except for the corn."

"Okay." Judy turned north. "Let's do another."

They went out and back three more times, so far from the farmhouse that the noise of the maze had faded almost completely. Most present now was the wind, and the soft crunch of Judy's own paws on the dirt and fallen corn leaves, and the occasional whiz of one of Joe's drones making another pass. At this point, they had to be halfway through the field. She took a deep breath and called Hayley's name, and heard Nick doing the same.

"Anything, Nick?"

"No."

It was cold and desolate out here. And in the washed-out glow of little else but a flashlight, each of the rows looked the same as the last. To run blindly through them was dangerous. There were irrigation ditches, and coils of hose that would catch a wayward paw. The odd tool, sometimes, with points or sharp edges.

Someone called in a false alarm, from the corner of the maze. Another came four passes later, way on the other side of the house by the toolsheds.

Judy didn't like this. They needed more lights. More eyes. What if they'd walked right past her, huddled in the lee of some stalk? What if she was too scared to call out? The light was casting weird shadows down the rows of corn, making their edges flicker and dance. Twice, Judy double-took down the seemingly endless passages that were like a fraught version of the maze behind them, as the shadows from her light stretched down into the gloom. The dim light ruined her depth perception, made it feel like things were rushing toward her. She kept checking her back.

Something snapped out in the dark.

_"Nick!"_

"It's me. Sorry." The channel cleared for a moment. "I see signs of passage north," he said. "Bent stalks, tiny footprints in the dirt."

"I'll divert," Joe said. Judy dimly heard the pitch of rotors somewhere above her shift. "First upgrade next season is an IR camera," he muttered.

She almost didn't hear it at first. It could have been someone being extra-loud back near the house, except it seemed to come from ahead of them.

"Hayley?"

_"Mama!"_

"Hayley, where are you?" Nick's voice carried further.

"Jude, go northeast." Joe's drone whirred into view. "That's you, right?"

Judy waved her light at its cameras.

"There's motion out there," he said. The drone tilted and moved off. "But I can't see the surface through the stalks. Everybody follow the quad. I'm going to sit right on top of it."

Five, six, seven rows north, and Judy could hear someone else moving ahead of them - and other searchers converging alongside.

"Hayley?"

"Mama!" It was a little bunny, all right. _"Mama!"_

She hadn't found a clearing. Hayley was right in the middle of the working crop, where she'd been squeezing through the tight-planted stalks, arcing right from her original northerly track. Judy made it to the same row, and Nick appeared on her right, pushing the stalks aside to join her. There were three other rabbits already here, crouched where a white-furred kit was sobbing into Judy's sister's jacket. Her paws were muddy; her exposed fur was smudged and strewn with hay. Judy wanted to reach for her - her instinct was to comfort the little one.

But instead of crowding close, she tipped against Nick, and looked up past his relieved expression to the drone orbiting above them.

"Thanks, Joe. We got her. We found her, everyone. She's all right."

\---

It was faster going once they made it back to the dirt path between the fields. Hayley was quiet and shivering; she clung onto her rescuers until members of her own family met them midway home; and then she clung onto them. She didn't seem to want to look out at the fields.

Stu and Bonnie looked up from a jumble of maps on the table as the rescue party entered. He slumped in relief; she jumped up to fetch Hayley something warm to drink. The little rabbit looked better already, for being in a warm, brightly lit kitchen.

Most of them crowded near the end by the hearth. Judy stood with Nick, across from her father and watched them. Adrenaline and tension - some justified, and some manufactured by her own thoughts during the sweep - was slow to spool down.

"Thank you both," Stu said.

"Thank Joe," Judy said. "This is a lot easier with eyes in the sky. He guided all of us in."

"You dropped everything to help."

"Like we had any other choice." She looked up at Nick when he squeezed her shoulder. He was tilting his head, in that way he did when he was worried about her. "We can always go back into the maze. I don't think we'll get lost."

They left them there, where Hayley sat with her paws around a big mug of cider, and stepped back into the chill of the night. Nick - maybe rattled enough to push things a little bit himself - paused to hold her cheeks in his big paws and look at her squarely.

"She's all right, sweetheart."

"I know."

"You keep looking over at her."

"I thought like her." Judy pulled him along, toward the orange glow of all the Jack-o'-Lanterns and candles at the maze entrance. "Of all the things that used to scare me this time of year. I think it got away from me a bit."

"There's no such thing as ghosts, sweetheart. You told me yourself." His paw squeezed hers.

"I know."

Winter zipped out of the maze and nearly ran Nick down in her haste to greet him. She held her punch card up to look at him through it. It was so enthusiastically perforated there was more air than card left.

Nick laughed. "Found all the stations, did you?"

"She's never seen this maze before, I swear," Sharon panted as she caught up. "She just knows somehow. Did you find her? Hayley?"

"We did," Judy said. "She's inside warming up. Not a scratch on her."

"That's good to hear."

Nick finally accepted the card. Winter rushed away again, to pluck a fresh one from the stack at the entrance, and disappeared into the stalks. Sharon offered a dogged smile and followed.

"Should we go with them?" he asked.

"As if we could keep up," Judy said. "I have a different idea anyway."


	5. Chapter 5

She took them back to their pumpkin. On this edge of the maze, out in the open, the wind was up. The lanterns and candles flickered in the gusts. She stood close against him, to cut down the worst of it.

"It's not a bad rabbit at all," Judy said.

"It smells good, too." Nick was looking fondly at it.

"Worth the wait?"

"Of course." She felt his muzzle against her ears. "Are you okay, Carrots?"

"Yes." She sat against the hay, in the glow of the Jack-o'-Lantern, and pulled him down beside her. It would cost her another effort to stop dwelling on what they'd done, just as it had to let the thoughts of Jamie go. But Nick knew that, and he was ready to help. "I worry, even though we bunnies are good at tracking down anyone who wanders off. That was probably the fright of Hayley's life, on a night like tonight. I hope it doesn't scare her away from the season entirely."

"This is so important to all of you," Nick said. "To you especially."

"I've missed it." She had his paws. "And I wanted to share it with you. I promise it's not always like this."

Nick shook his head. "Your family is always an adventure. And it ended all right. I'll bet she won't go off on her own next time," he said. "She looked pretty happy to stay inside with that cup of cider, where it was warm."

"We should have brought some."

Nick looked sideways at her, with that sly fox grin of his. "Yeah."

He reached over to rummage in his backpack. He had a first aid kit in there, because she'd seen him add it - but he also had the thermos from this morning, and a thick flannel Judy recognized from the linen closet outside her room. He gave her the drink - ginger apple cider, seasoned with the spices from their own garden - and she watched him stand back up to unfold the blanket.

"And how long have you been planning this?"

"They were in case Hayley needed to warm up, actually," Nick said. "But I think this is a good use for them, too."

He pulled her to her feet long enough to wrap the two of them in the blanket, so she would be in his lap, and they curled up in the lee of the haybales to avoid the worst of the wind.

It would be her turn to sound like a greeting card if she opened her mouth, Judy knew. Sure, a warm wrap and a hot drink wasn't as critical as the radios or lights they'd needed to perform an effective search, but they would have meant just as much to Hayley. If Judy ever got lost running from ghosts, she decided, she wanted her fox to be the one looking for her.

She settled for pressing back against him in the shelter of their blanket, into his thick fur. The call to search had blunted much of the amorousness they'd both shown in the maze, but Judy was just as happy to curl up and just keep each other warm right now. It was such a cozy balance, between the rush and hiss of the chill wind coming in off the open fields and the stable familiarity of Nick, wrapped around her in the light of the pumpkin they'd carved together. They shared their drink and he ran his muzzle along her ears and she pulled his soft, fluffy tail into her lap to stroke it.

"Whoa."

Judy looked up and gulped down an overlarge mouthful of piping hot cider. Across the broad field, the run-down barn near the edge of the property seemed to be emitting thick fog, that swirled around the doors that hung at odd angles. It caught the moonlight and washed the whole structure out in bleak grays and blacks. Judy caught indistinct motion, too, as something drifted behind the gap at the entrance.

And as they watched, the wind gusted, and carried a low sigh across the field. The fur on her neck started to stand up.

"Nice speakers," Nick murmured against her ears.

"Speakers, huh?"

"Ghosts aren't real."

"And Joe and his team are still back in the tech shed with the drones," Judy countered.

"That's not them?" Nick's eyes were wide.

"I don't think so."

That whisper rattled its way to their ears again, before the wind rushed through and stole it. Above them, the flame in their Jack-o'-Lantern fluttered and snapped.

There was definitely something moving down there. Through the creaking doors, and out over the old rutted tracks where wagons and tractors used to pull up. Judy couldn't look directly at it. It seemed to blur every time she tried.

And as it made a slow turn, as if searching, she felt the ice crawling down her back, as if she were six years old again, when she still knew the phantoms came back and roamed the edges of the fields, _watching-_

It had eyes. Or something luminescent and glowing where eyes were supposed to be.

Nick's claws were in her, too, needling against her stomach and chest. He was keeping her as close as he could. She felt his tail bristle around her.

"Carrots-"

_"Don't move."_ Judy clutched at his paws underneath their blanket. "You can't outrun them if they decide to come after you."

"Them?"

They held their breath for another long, windswept moment, until whatever it was, whatever they'd collectively hallucinated, sank into the dirt and was gone. But the fog curled and wisped in the wind, unnaturally stubborn.

Judy ran her paws through Nick's tail fur until he, too, relaxed. He was frowning down at her.

"You're not- suggesting there actually-"

"I don't know." The ruins of the barn kept drawing her eyes. She kept waiting to see more motion. "Maybe Joe had someone else do it this time, so he could keep an ear on the maze. Maybe he moves faster than I thought."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe some things are better left unexplained?"

"We'll just have to keep watch for a while to know for sure, won't we? Don't worry, fox." Judy snuggled closer and held up the thermos for him, very glad that he was there to keep her safe and warm right now. "Any ghosts down there will have to come through me."

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/)   
>  [chronology](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yPmpmdo39SmiRNC4BJVv2PAWi7fxBoP5FWba9n8s3qg/edit?pref=2&pli=1)


End file.
